education-theory

The publisher has added a lot of graphs and diagrams to aid understanding. It is a very user-friendly book and suitable for undergraduates and beginner postgraduates courses. The only room for improvement is that the depth of material is not enough for more advanced course.

The author makes it clear that this short book is an essay on her thoughts concerning the effects of feminisism on college campusus; in particular she refers to her experiences at Princeton.

I found the book to be very easy and enjoyable reading. As someone who has attended a "Take back the Night" events on a college campus, her observations really resonated with me.

This is really not a reference work; someone who wants studies and data needs to look elsewhere. But, if someone wants to think about the various ideologies on the relations between the sexes, this essay is a good place to start.

The cornerstone of Gordon's theory is audiation - hearing and understanding music when it is not played. Preparatory audiation is the one applied to children in the music babble stage (analogous to language babble), usually 0 to 5 years old. Gordon's theory proposes three types of preparatory audiation: roughly, listening and responding out of sync, imitating with some precision and coordinating singing or chanting with movement and breathing. Each type is further subdivided into stages. Most of the book is devoted to the description of each of the stages.

The theory itself is intriguing since it is the only one (at least to my knowledge) attempting to deal systematically with musical education of very young children. Intuitively, the theory makes sense: expose the children to a variety of repeating tonal and rhythm patterns and they will develop a better music vocabulary. Then they will babble through it, just like they do with language. And then they move to adjusting their singing/chanting to match breathing and movement.

The book is not an easy read. Specific musical terminology could be better understood by a layman with the help of the dictionary at the end. But the narrative reveals someone who is, perhaps, more at ease with music than with written word. Overall, the book is fairly dry. In addition, no attempt is made to seriously compare MLT with some existing well-known music learning methods, such as Suzuki.

Some good advice is given on choosing an instrument for a child. Apart from the child's physical characteristics, Gordon suggests to pay special attention to his preference for the tone quality of an instrument.

Overall, I would recommend this book for parents or teachers of music, especially the ones with some music education, but do not expect a breezy read!

I use this book in a college course that I teach called Applied Music. It is one hour of theory and one hour of performance. I like the workbook format of this book and the size of the staff
to work with. It is a good book to start with.

For those interested in classroom environments and Feminist discourse as pedagogy this book is amazing. Fisher uses many class examples and proceeds to deconstruct them using her methods of a mixture of consciousness-raising techniques from the 60s and 70s early feminist movements as well as current tenets of feminist scholarship. Her solutions to difficult situations can be used in many classrooms. She analyzes her position as a tenured faculty and her teaching philosophy with the admission that those circumstances are not universal or even commonplace in the lives of other faculty.
She addresses the stereotype that Women's Studies classes are essentially touchy-feely and thus less scholarly or intellectual, by bringing to the forefront that learning takes place under varying circumstances. Qualifying the validity of one type of learning over another has routinely been a way to belittle not just women's accomplishments but the accomplishments of many marginalized groups.

Anyone interested in teaching at a University level would benefit from reading this book. You don't have to identify as a feminist to appreciate the well articulated theories and their practical applications.

It was a good example of inquiry-based teaching. A model for future possibilities in education.

This collection of essays accurately reflects the state of the culture wars in the academy. Professor Williams has collected commentary from important critics addressing such issues as curriculum, the rise of theory, and the problems of politics. The essays share a common commitment to understanding the political embeddedness of all speech acts. Even omissions offer political prejudice and only through the self-conscious efforts of academic dialogue can the attempt to speak fairly and critically be gained. Contributors include Michael Berube, Gerald Graff, Henry Girous, John Howard, Bruce Robbins, and Jeffrey Williams. Published before the Sokal "outbreak" at "Social Text," PC Wars is a prequel of issues charging that very debate.

The book provides a brief synopsis of various personality theorists and theories. It allows one to understand various theories by exploring personal responses to questions each theorist might ask. The personal journey approach engages students and helps the learning process.

Gutek's "Pestalozzi and Education" is a well written and interesting book.

The author writes about the political, social, economic, and intellectual settings of Pestalozzi's time. Througout the book Gutek summarizes Pestalozzi's life and work very well. Finally, he brings up some good points in "Attitudianl Dimension" (the last part of the book.) about education.

Unfortunately, the author often does not base his statements on primary sources. He normally uses English translations, which were published in the beginning until the middle of 20th century. -- There were many new and very helpful publications about Pestalozzi and his methods in 1980's and 90's in Germany and Switzerland. Moreover, Pestalozzi's writing was completely republished at the end of 20th century. -- For understanding Pestalozzi's ideas and methods, there is a real need for more information and specific quoatations of Pestalozzi's writing. Consequently, the consideration of the new publications about Pestalozzi as well as the revised editions of his writings is necessary.

For example, Liedtke`s monography about Pestalozzi is an excellent researched and written book about the educator's life and work. This publication is probably the most helpful introduction into Pestalozzi's life and work. Prof. Dr. A. Reble's editing of "Wie Gertud ihre Kinder lehrt" gives an opportunity for reading some of Pestalozzi's original publications. The unique and sometimes a little bit chaotic writing of J. H. Pestalozzi is published by "Julius Klinkhardt Verlag", Bad Heilbrunn, Germany. People, who are interested in knowing more about Pestalozzi's spiritual life, should read "Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi: Der Mut des Demütigen: Worte zum Glauben" -- written by Hermann Horn (ISBN 3-290-10995-X). This publication gives some insights about the belief and worldview of the Swiss educator. All these publications have been sold by Amazon, Germany.

In summary, Gutek's book is a good introduction into Pestalozzi's life and methods of teaching that is recommanded by the writer of this book review. Gutek's publication is a stimulating approach towards the life and work of this pioneer of modern education. Nevertheless, there is a need for a completion to this publication for giving a real overview about Pestalozzi's methods of education, life work and struggles.

Piaget's stage theory of intellectual development is rather common fodder for developmental psychology and education courses. Here is an excellent summary of the immense amount of material, both theoretical and experimental, that constitutes the corpus of Piaget's work.

Following almost all secondary authors who discuss Piaget, Ginsburg and Opper discuss each cognitive stage in a separate chapter, in this case, labelled after the common age periods exemplified by each stage.

I especially liked the introductory chapter that provides a theoretical overview of Paiget's developmental work, and a biographical account of the major publications reflecting the more important aspects of his work, and covering Piaget's entire career. This book is stronger than Flavell's "The Developmental Psychology of Jean Piaget" in explaining the cognitive mechanisms at work in stage transitions, the explication of formal operational thought in adolescence, and the application of Piaget to an educational context. I also liked the focus of this book. Ginsburg and Opper are more careful than Flavell to avoid digressions to touch upon peripheral aspects of Paiget's work. Flavell has greater appreciation of Paiget as an epistemologist.

If you intend to read some of Piaget, I strongly recommend this book as an introductory primer. Piaget can be somewhat dense without preparation beforehand.